Shorty's Go With Art

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Title:     Shorty's Go With Art
Author: Sewell Ford [More Titles by Ford]

When me and art gets into the ring together, you might as well burn the form sheet and slip the band back on your bettin' roll, for there's no tellin' who'll take the count.

It was Cornelia Ann that got me closer to art than I'd ever been before, or am like to get again. Now, I didn't hunt her up, nor she didn't come gunnin' for me. It was a case of runnin' down signals and collidin' on the stair landin'; me makin' a grand rush out of the Studio for a cross town car, and she just gettin' her wind 'fore she tackled the next flight.

Not that I hit her so hard; but it was enough to spill the paper bundles she has piled up on one arm, and start 'em bouncin' down the iron steps. First comes a loaf of bread; next a bottle of pickles, that goes to the bad the third hop; and exhibit C was one of these ten-cent dishes of baked beans--the pale kind, that look like they'd floated in with the tide. Course, that dinky tin pan they was in don't land flat. It slips out of the bag as slick as if it was greased, stands up on edge, and rolls all the way down, distributin' the mess from top to bottom, as even as if it was laid on with a brush.

"My luncheon!" says she, in a reg'lar me-che-e-ild voice.

"Lunch!" says I. "That's what I'd call a spread. This one's on the house, but the next one will be on me. Will to-morrow do?"

"Ye-es," says she.

"Sorry," says I, "but I'm runnin' behind sched. now. What's the name, miss?"

"C. A. Belter, top floor," says she; "but don't mind about----"

"That'll be all right, too," says I, skippin' down over the broken glass and puntin' the five-cent white through the door for a goal.

It's little things like that, though, that keeps a man from forgettin' how he was brought up. I'm ready enough with some cheap jolly, but when it comes to throwin' in a "beg pardon" at the right place I'm a late comer. I thinks of 'em sometime next day.

Course, I tries to get even by orderin' a four-pound steak, with mushroom trimmin's, sent around from the hotel on the corner; but I couldn't get over thinkin' how disappointed she looked when she saw that pan of beans doin' the pinwheel act. I know I've seen the time when a plate of pork-and in my fist would have been worth all the turkey futures you could stack in a barn, and maybe it was that way with her.

Anyway, she didn't die of it, for a couple of days later she knocks easy on the Studio door and gets her head in far enough to say how nice it was of me to send her that lovely steak.

"Forget it," says I.

"Never," says she. "I'm going to do a bas relief of you, in memory of it."

"A barrel which?" says I.

Honest, I wa'n't within a mile of bein' next. It comes out that she does sculpturing and wants to make a kind of embossed picture of me in plaster of paris, like what the peddlers sell around on vacant stoops.

"I'd look fine on a panel, wouldn't I?" says I. "Much obliged, miss, but sittin' for my halftone is where I draws the line. I'll lend you Swifty Joe, though."

She ain't acquainted with the only registered assistant professor of physical culture in the country, but she says if he don't mind she'll try her hand on him first, and then maybe I'll let her do one of me. Now, you'd thought Swifty, with that before-takin' mug of his, would have hid in the cellar 'fore he'd let anybody make a cast of it; but when the proposition is sprung, he's as pleased as if it was for the front page of Fox's pink.

That was what fetched me up to that seven by nine joint of hers, next the roof, to have a look at what she'd done to Swifty Joe. He tows me up there. And say, blamed if she hadn't got him to the life, broken nose, ingrowin' forehead, whopper jaw, and all!

"How about it?" says Joe, grinnin' at me as proud as if he'd broke into the Fordham Heights Hall of Fame.

"I never see anything handsomer--of the kind," says I.

Then I got to askin' questions about the sculpturin' business, and how the market was; so Miss Belter and me gets more or less acquainted. She was a meek, slimpsy little thing, with big, hungry lookin' eyes, and a double hank of cinnamon coloured hair that I should have thought would have made her neck ache to carry around.

Judgin' by the outfit in her ranch, the sculp-game ain't one that brings in sable lined coats and such knickknacks. There was a bed couch in one corner, a single burner gas stove on an upended trunk in another, and chunks of clay all over the place. Light housekeepin' and art don't seem to mix very well. Maybe they're just as tasty, but I'd as soon have my eggs cooked in a fryin' pan that hadn't been used for a mortar bed.

We passed the time of day reg'lar after that, and now and then she'd drop into the front office to show me some piece she'd made. I finds out that the C. A. in her name stands for Cornelia Ann; so I drops the Miss Belter and calls her that.

"Father always calls me that, too," says she.

"Yes?" says I.

That leads up to the story of how the old folks out in Minnekeegan have been backin' her for a two years' stab at art in a big city. Seems it has been an awful drain on the fam'ly gold reserve, and none of 'em took any stock in such foolishness anyway, but she'd jollied 'em into lettin' her have a show to make good, and now the time was about up.

"Well," says I, "you ain't all in, are you?"

Her under lip starts to pucker up at that, and them hungry eyes gets foggy; but she takes a new grip on herself, makes a bluff at grinnin', and says, throaty like, "It's no use pretending any longer, I--I'm a failure!"

Say, that makes me feel like an ice cream sign in a blizzard. I hadn't been lookin' to dig up any private heart throbs like that. But there it was; so I starts in to cheer her up the best I knew how.

"Course," says I, "it's a line I couldn't shake a nickel out of in a year; but if it suited me, and I thought I was onto my job, I'd make it yield the coin, or go good and hungry tryin'."

"Perhaps I have gone hungry," says she, quiet like.

"Honest?" says I.

"That steak lasted me for a week," says she.

There was more particulars followed that throws Cornelia Ann on the screen in a new way for me. Grit! Why, she had enough to sand a tarred roof. She'd lived on ham knuckles and limed eggs and Swiss cheese for months. She'd turned her dresses inside out and upside down, lined her shoes with paper when it was wet, and wore a long sleeved shirt waist when there wa'n't another bein' used this side of the prairies. And you can judge what that means by watchin' the women size each other up in a street car.

"If they'd only given me half a chance to show what I could do!" says she. "But I didn't get the chance, and perhaps it was my fault. So what's the use? I'll just pack up and go back to Minnekeegan."

"Minnekeegan!" says I. "That sounds tough. What then?"

"Oh," says she, "my brother is foreman in a broom factory. He will get me a job at pasting labels."

"Say," says I, gettin' a quick rush of blood to the head, "s'posen I should contract for a full length of Swifty Joe to hang here in----"

"No you don't!" says she, edgin' off. "It's good of you, but charity work isn't what I want."

Say, it wa'n't any of my funeral, but that broom fact'ry proposition stayed with me quite some time. The thoughts of anyone havin' to go back to a place with a name like Minnekeegan was bilious enough; but for a girl that had laid out to give Macmonnies a run for the gold medal, the label pastin' prospect must have loomed up like a bad dream.

There's one good thing about other folks's troubles though--they're easy put on the shelf. Soon's I gets to work I forgets all about Cornelia Ann. I has to run out to Rockywold that afternoon, to put Mr. Purdy Pell through his reg'lar course of stunts that he's been takin' since some one told him he was gettin' to be a forty-fat. There was a whole bunch of swells on hand; for it's gettin' so, now they can go and come in their own tourin' cars, that winter house parties are just as common as in summer.

"Thank heaven you've come!" says Mr. Pell. "It gives me a chance to get away from cards for an hour or so."

"Guess you need it," says I. "You look like the trey of spades."

Then Pinckney shows up in the gym., and he no sooner sees us at work with the basket ball than he begins to peel off. "I say there!" says he. "Count me in on some of that, or I'll be pulled into another rubber."

About an hour later, after they'd jollied me into stayin' all night, I puts on a sweater and starts out for some hoof exercise in the young blizzard that was makin' things white outside. Sadie holds me up at the door. Her cheeks was blazin', and I could see she was holdin' the Sullivan temper down with both hands.

"Hello!" says I. "What's been stirrin' you up?"

"Bridge!" snaps she. "I guess if you'd been glared at for two hours, and called stupid when you lost, and worse names when you won, you'd feel like throwing the cards at some one."

"Well, why didn't you?" says I.

"I did," says she, "and there's an awful row on; but I don't care! And if you don't stop that grinnin', I'll----"

Well, she does it. That's the way with Sadie, words is always too slow for her. Inside of a minute she's out chasin' me around the front yard and peltin' me with snow balls.

"See here," says I, diggin' a hunk of snow out of one ear, "that kind of sport's all to the merry; but if I was you I'd dress for the part. Snowballin' in slippers and silk stockin's and a lace dress is a pneumonia bid, even if you are such a warm one on top."

"Who's a red head?" says she. "You just wait a minute, Shorty McCabe, and I'll make you sorry for that!"

It wa'n't a minute, it was nearer fifteen; but when Sadie shows up again she's wearin' the slickest Canuck costume you ever see, all blanket stripes and red tassels, like a girl on a gift calendar.

"Whe-e-e!" says she, and the snow begins to fly in chunks. It was the damp, packy kind that used to make us go out and soak the tall hats when we was kids. And Sadie hasn't forgot how to lam 'em in, either. We was havin' it hot and lively, all over the lawn, when the first thing I knows out comes Mrs. Purdy Pell and Pinckney and a lot of others, to join in the muss. They'd dragged out a whole raft of toboggan outfits from the attic, and the minute they gets 'em on they begins to act as coltish as two-year-olds.

Well say, you wouldn't have thought high rollers like them, that gets their fun out of playin' the glass works exhibit at the op'ra, and eatin' one A. M. suppers at Sherry's, and doublin' no trumps at a quarter a point, could unbuckle enough to build snow forts, and yell like Indians, and cut up like kids generally. But they does--washed each other's faces, and laughed and whooped it up until dark. Didn't need the dry Martinis to jolly up appetites for that bunch when dinner time come, and if there was anyone awake in Rockywold after ten o'clock that night it was the butler and the kitchen help.

I looked for 'em to forget it all by mornin' and start in again on their punky card games; but they was all up bright and early, plannin' out new stunts. There'd been a lot of snow dropped durin' the night, and some one gets struck with the notion that buildin' snow men would be the finest sport in the world. They couldn't hardly wait to eat breakfast before they gets on their blanket clothes and goes at it. They was rollin' up snow all over the place, as busy as 'longshoremen--all but Pinckney. He gives out that him and me has been appointed an art committee, to rake in an entrance fee of ten bones each and decide who gets the purse for doin' the best job.

"G'wan!" says I. "I couldn't referee no such fool tournament as this."

"That's right, be modest!" says he. "Don't mind our feelings at all."

Then Sadie and Mrs. Pell butts in and says I've just got to do it; so I does. We gives 'em so long to pile up their raw material, and half an hour after that to carve out what they thinks they can do best, nothin' barred. Some starts in on Teddy bears, one gent plans out a cop; but the most of 'em don't try anything harder'n plain snow men, with lumps of coal for eyes, and pipes stuck in to finish off the face.

It was about then that Count Skiphauser moves out of the background and begins to play up strong. He's one of these big, full blooded pretzels that's been everywhere, and seen everything, and knows it all, and thinks there ain't anything but what he can do a little better'n anybody else.

"Oh, well," says he, "I suppose I must show you what snow carving really is. I won a prize for this sort of thing in Berlin, you know."

"It's all over now," says I to Pinckney. "You heard Skippy pickin' himself for a winner, didn't you?"

"He's a bounder," says Pinckney, talkin' corner-wise--"lives on his bridge and poker winnings. He mustn't get the prize."

But Skiphauser ain't much more'n blocked out a head and shoulders 'fore it was a cinch he was a ringer, with nothin' but a lot of rank amateurs against him. Soon's the rest saw what they was up against they all laid down, for he was makin' 'em look like six car fares. Course, there wa'n't nothin' to do but join the gallery and watch him win in a walk.

"Oh, it's a bust of Bismarck, isn't it?" says one of the women. "How clever of you, Count!"

At that Skippy throws out his chest and begins to chuck in the flourishes. That kind of business suited him down to the ground. He cocks his head on one side, twists up his lip whiskers like Billy the Tooth, and goes through all the motions of a man that knows he's givin' folks a treat.

"Hates himself, don't he?" says I. "He must have graduated from some tombstone foundry."

Pinckney was wild. So was Sadie and Mrs. Purdy Pell, on account of the free-for-all bein' turned into a game of solitaire.

"I just wish," says Sadie, "that there was some way of taking him down a peg. If I only knew of someone who----"

"I do, if you don't," says I.

Say, what do you reckon had been cloggin' my thought works all that time. I takes the three of 'em to one side and springs my proposition, tellin' 'em I'd put it through if they'd stand for it. Would they? They're so tickled they almost squeals.

I gets Swifty Joe at the Studio on the long distance and gives him his instructions. It was a wonder he got it straight, for sometimes you can't get an idea into his head without usin' a brace and bit, but this trip he shows up for a high brow. Pretty quick we gets word that it's all O. K. Pinckney bulletins it to the crowd that, while Sadie's pulled out of the competition, she's asked leave to put on a sub, and that the prize awardin' will be delayed until after the returns are all in.

Meantime I climbs into the sleigh and goes down to meet the express. Sure enough, Cornelia Ann was aboard, a bit hazy about the kind of a stunt that's expected of her, but ready for anything. I don't go into many details, for fear of givin' her stage fright; but I lets her know that if she's got any sculpturin' tricks up her sleeve now's the time to shake 'em out.

"I've been tellin' some friends of mine," says I, "that when it comes to clay art, or plaster of paris art, you was the real lollypop; and I reckoned that if you could do pieces in mud, you could do 'em just as well in snow."

"Snow!" says she. "Why, I never tried."

Maybe I'd banked too much on Cornelia, or perhaps she was right in sayin' this was out of her line. Anyway, it was a mighty disappointed trio that sized her up when I landed her under the porte cochère.

When she's run her eye over the size and swellness of the place I've brought her to, and seen a sample of the folks, she looks half scared to death. And you wouldn't have played her for a fav'rite, either, if you'd seen the cheap figure she cut, with them big eyes rollin' around, as if she was huntin' for the nearest way out. But we give her a cup of hot tea, makes her put on a pair of fleece lined overshoes and somebody's Persian lamb jacket, and leads her out to make a try for the championship.

Some of 'em was sorry of her, and tried to be sociable; but others just stood around and snickered and whispered things behind their hands. Honest, I could have thrown brickbats at myself for bein' such a mush head. That wouldn't have helped any though, so I gets busy and rolls together a couple of chunks of snow about as big as flour barrels and piles one on top of the other.

"It's up to you, Cornie," says I. "Can't you dig something or other out of that?"

She don't say whether she can or can't, but just walks around it two or three times, lookin' at it dreamy, like she was in a trance. Next she braces up a bit, calls for an old carvin' knife and a kitchen spoon, and goes to work, the whole push watchin' her as if she was some freak in a cage.

I pipes off her motions for awhile real hopeful, and then I edges out where I could look the other way. Why say, all she'd done was to hew out something that looks like a lot of soap boxes piled up for a bonfire. It was a case of funk, I could see that; and maybe I wa'n't feelin' like I'd carried a gold brick down to the subtreasury and asked for the acid test.

Then I begins to hear the "Oh's!" and "Ah's!" come from the crowd. First off I thought they was guyin' her, but when I strolls back near enough for a peek at what she was up to, my mouth comes open, too. Say, you wouldn't believe it less'n you'd seen it done, but she was just fetchin' out of that heap of snow, most as quick and easy as if she was unpackin' it from a crate, the stunningest lookin' altogether girl that I ever see outside a museum.

I don't know who it was supposed to be, or why. She's holdin' up with one hand what draperies she's got--which wa'n't any too many--an' with the other she's reachin' above her head after somethin' or other--maybe the soap on the top shelf. But she was a beaut, all right. And all Cornelia was doin' to bring her out was just slashin' away careless with the knife and spoon handle, hardly stoppin' a second between strokes. She simply had 'em goggle eyed. I reckon they'd seen things just as fine and maybe better, but they hadn't had a front seat before, while a little ninety-pound cinnamon top like Cornelia Ann stepped up and yanked a whitewashed angel out of a snow heap.

"It's wonderful!" says Mrs. Purdy Pell.

"Looks to me like we had Skippy fingerin' the citrus, don't it?" says I.

The Count he's been standin' there with his mouth open, like the rest of us, only growin' redder 'n' redder.

But just then Cornelia makes one last swipe, drops her tools, and steps back to take a view. We all quits to see what's comin' next. Well, she looks and looks at that Lady Reacher she's dug out, never sayin' a word; and before we knows it she's slumped right down there in the snow, with both hands over her face, doin' the weep act like a kid.

In two shakes it was Sadie and Mrs. Purdy Pell to the rescue, one on each side, while the rest of us gawps on and looks foolish.

"What is it, you poor darling?" says Sadie.

Finally, after a good weep, Cornie unloosens her trouble. "Oh, oh!" says she. "I just know it's going to rain to-morrow!"

Now wouldn't that give you a foolish fit?

"What of it?" says Sadie.

"That," says she, pointin' to the snow lady. "She'll be gone forever. Oh, it's wicked, wicked!"

"Well," says I, "she's too big to go in the ice box."

"Never mind, dear," says Mrs. Purdy Pell; "you shall stay right here and do another one, in solid marble. I'll give you a thousand for a duplicate of that."

"And then you must do something for me," says Sadie.

"And me, too," says Mrs. Dicky Madison.

I didn't wait to hear any more, for boostin' lady sculpturesses ain't my reg'lar work. But, from all I hear of Cornelia Ann, she won't paste labels in any broom fact'ry.

For your simple liver and slow quitter, art's all right; but it's a long shot, at that. What?

[The end]
Sewell Ford's short story: Shorty's Go With Art

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